melting wax wings
by Alyyang123
Summary: [There once was a hero who flew too close to the sun...] Sometimes, people make the wrong choices. Annabeth learns the hard way.


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><p><strong>melting wax wings<strong>  
>[<em>there once was a hero that flew too close to the sun...<em>]

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><p>.<p>

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><p><em>melting wax and loosened strings<em>

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><p><strong>i. story<strong>

Once, when she is young, only a mere slip of a girl with wispy blond hair that hangs loosely around her shoulder and large, quiet, knowing grey eyes, her father reads her a story.

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><p><em>sunk hapless youth on unfaithful wings<em>

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><p><strong>ii. foreboding<strong>

There is something very, very wrong when she jumps off the Argo II.

At first she can only see the vivid colors of _sea __green _and _raven black _and there's nothing on her mind except for the fact that _he's back_- he's back for them, he's back for _her_- _elation_-

But his gentle caress is not as sweet as the ones she treasures in her memories, his bright smile bordering on the edges of a livid scowl, his warm skin cold and cruel to the touch, and she thinks, _ugly_, _not beautiful_.

She does not know this man.

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><p><em>headlong he rushed through affrighted air<em>

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><p><strong>iii. stranger<strong>

_I don't know you_, she says, and pulls away from him with wide, accusing eyes. _You aren't him. You aren't my boyfriend_.

_What do you mean, Annabeth?_ and she hates more than anything how similar he looks like to _her_ Percy (because he's a different person now, not the one she loved). _I'm Perseus Jackson, aren't I? Hero of Olympus, child of the prophecy? Of course you know me._

She wants to smack him, _hard_, because that stupid expression plastered on his face is so _freaking familiar_ and suddenly there's something constricting her throat and _she can't breathe_-

(something wet trails down her cheek-

it's definitely not a tear, though, because children of Athena do not simply _cry_)

_No_, she repeats hollowly, but this time there is firm conviction behind her tone. _I do not know you. You are a stranger_.

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><p><em>with limbs distorted and disheveled hair<em>

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><p><strong>iv. denial<strong>

_He loves you_, the female praetor says, black hair billowing in the wind and brown eyes almost as piercing as her own. _He says that you were the only one he remembered when he lost his memory- his most precious thing-_

She stares out at the Roman scenery, mouth set in a half-frown but not quite. _I can't love this man_, she whispers, although if it is to herself or to the mysterious dark-eyed woman she does not know. _He's changed so much. __I just can't_._  
><em>

The woman- Renate? Reina? No, Reyna- does not answer at once, but chooses an answer carefully, carefully. _I once loved a man, too_, Reyna admits cautiously, and then flinches almost instinctively at her own words but does not stop talking. _At first I despised him- he was stupid, clueless, and never listened to anybody else. But then he saved my life. And I found that I loved him.__  
><em>

_I loved him_, Reyna continues, and there is something bitter on her face in the sharp afternoon light. _And he loved me. And we were happy; ignorant of the cruel fates, ignorant of reality._

_And then one day he simply tossed me away for some wench with a pretty face and big assets,_ the praetor, who is now just a girl with a broken heart and shattered world, says, tightly gripping the top of the wooden parapet. _But I still loved him, love him._

She does not say anything for a few seconds when the other girl stops talking and there is a tensed, stretched silence before she opens her mouth once again. _You love Jason, didn't you,_ she asks, with dawning realization, and watches Reyna's composed face crumple into something more like _despair_, _resentment_. Rage.

_You love him,_ she repeats almost mechanically, _but he doesn't love you._

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><p><em>his scattered plumage danced upon the wave<em>

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><p><strong>v. dream<strong>

That first lonely night inside the Argo II, she dreams of Reyna's dark eyes, filled with anger, hatred, betrayal.

She hates how much they look like her own.

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><p><em>and sorrowing nereids decked his watery grave<em>

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><p><strong>vi. alone<strong>

The Romans on board the ship are timid creatures: a little girl, with curly black hair tied in a ponytail and velvety brown skin that shines prettily in the light; and a tall boy, pale skin, short, gleaming black hair, cursed with a child's face and a man's body. She is not sure what to think of them, but treats them cordially; they are _his_ friends, after all.

She remembers a time when it was just her and Percy and Grover, young and naive without a single care in the world-

Everybody seems to be leaving her behind nowadays.

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><p><em>o'er his pale corpse their pearly sea-flowers shed<em>

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><p><strong>vii. juxtaposition<strong>

Rome is a large city.

There is something _ethereal, magical_ about the ancient architecture; flower vines climbing up peeling white pillars, a dusty rooftop gleaming in the summer light, an aging fountain burbling cheerfully within the confines of a cobblestone wall.

She remembers a missed trip to the Parthenon and then crying, miserable, under the covers when she thought everybody else was asleep; because there was a full-out war about to start and she would probably be dead by the end of it and then_ how would she see all the architectural marvels of the world-?_

_This must be a rain check_, she thinks, and laughs bitterly at the irony of it all.

_A post-mortem one, anyway_.

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><p><em>and strewed with crimson moss his marble bed<em>

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><p><strong>viii. farewell<strong>

_Goodbye_, she thinks quietly, as she stares into the glittering, malicious eyes of Arachne.

And the building rumbles.

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><p><em>struck in their coral towers the passing bell<em>

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><p><strong>ix. fall<strong>

_Take the statue_, she yells, throat hoarse from sheer panic, and her companions scramble for the Athena Parthenos.

Nobody notices the string tied around her broken ankle, not even herself, until it is too late.

And this time, when she falls, nobody catches her.

_Black blur- pull- no escape-_

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><p><em>and wide in ocean tolled his echoing knell<em>

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><p><strong>x. story<strong>

Once, when she is young, only a mere slip of a girl with wispy blond hair that hangs loosely around her shoulder and large, quiet, knowing grey eyes, her father reads her a story.

'_The __hero flew too close to the sun, to the gods, and the wax on his wings melted as he came crashing back to the earth.'_

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><p>.<p>

**-τέλος-**

**.**


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